


Under Golden Promise

by calrissian18



Series: Mating Games: Round 2 [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But no one dies, Frontotemporal Dementia, Happy Ending, Hospital Setting, Jealous Derek, M/M, Pack Building, Stilinski Family Feels, talk of major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1613906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re delusional,” he said, grinning, “and trust me, I <i>know</i> delusional.”  His limbs were long and coltish and he didn’t seem to have expert control over them.  His eyes were big, amber, framed with preternatural lashes and he had spots.</p>
<p>He was a fawn and Derek, a wolf.  Maybe that explained why Derek was struck with the urge to devour him.</p>
<p>Written for mating_games Bonus Challenge 2: Sleepover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Golden Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Золотое обещание](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3607827) by [izumrudishe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/izumrudishe/pseuds/izumrudishe)



> What? Why, yes, this _is_ stupid long. Thank you.
> 
> Many much love to my brain-twin Emmers for brainstorming the SHIT out of this with me when I arbitrarily decided I wanted _more_. You beautiful, indulgent monster - I've no idea where I would be without you. *tackles*
> 
>  
> 
> **There is a lot of talk of Character Death here, though no one dies nor is it implied that anyone is going to by the end. Happy endings all around. *tosses glitter***

  
  
cover art by the incredibly generous and amazingly talented [izumrudishe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/izumrudishe)  


“You’re starting to look as pale as I am.”

Derek jerked awake.

Laura’s eyes were glinting red in the dark, a smirk curving her bloodless lips.  Her expression was teasing, but there was a set of unease to her mouth that she couldn’t quite hide.

Derek wasn’t sure if it came from looking at him or from the pain the morphine was doing nothing to alleviate.  He wouldn’t blame her for either.  He straightened up self-consciously from the sprawl he’d slouched into.  The hospital chairs inflicted all kinds of awkward aches on him and simply sitting up made his neck crack in two places.

He moved to Laura’s side carefully, laying a hand on her forearm and feeling her agony burn through him, settle in his gut and  _twist_.  He watched her ease into it, never comfortable accepting this kind of relief from anyone, and tried to catalogue today’s damages against yesterday’s, convince himself she was improving.

She did look pale and cracked, but no longer broken.

They’d told him so many times that she would die that, before long, he’d started to believe it.  It was taking time to accept the opposite.  They couldn’t explain her recovery, her swift recuperation, but the word ‘miracle’ had gotten tossed around more than once.

She still couldn’t walk, her upper thigh and hip a mangled mess.  She still bled through every bandage they slapped across her.

The arm Derek wasn’t touching was resting stiffly across her middle, held at a strange angle as she tried to take the pressure off her shoulder.  The bandage there had a dull patch of red seeping through and Derek felt rage and shame rise up in him just looking at it.

“I’m still here, Dumbek,” she said, mouth twisted and tone sharp.  She didn’t know how to deal with his guilt or his anger.  She’d always been hardened to that, even when they were kids, and now she was even less sure of how to relate to him.

Derek knew that was his fault too.  He stepped away, back to his chair, trying to make his presence smaller, less intrusive.

She stared out into the hallway when he didn’t react to the childhood insult.  It wasn’t the first time they’d avoided each other’s eyes in recent memory.

It wouldn’t be the last.

Derek grunted, voice still hoarse with sleep.  “The nurse who came in earlier told me they have green Jell-O again.”

“And you’re still here?”  Laura let out an affronted sound and threw her pillow at him with her good arm.  It wrenched her side and she fell back, winded.  They weren’t used to pain that lasted, wounds that didn’t heal.

Derek wondered if there was a part of her that didn’t want it to.  He’d heard stories about wolves that stopped the healing process because of some unresolved internal conflict.  But Laura was knitting back together.  Slowly, but inevitably.  He took comfort in that.

He picked up the pillow and threw it back at her lightly.  Because she was trying to act normal, like he was her kid brother and not the harbinger of death for their entire family, so he could try to do the same.  He left the room with his head down and his guilt like an anchor around his neck, dragging him lower.

“Whoa there, son.”

He’d been staring at his shoes, lost inside his own head and reliving the horrors that were playing themselves out there nonstop.  Hands came up to his shoulders, ostensibly to steady him though he was already steady.  It was human contact for the sake of it and he felt himself shiver in gratitude.  He blinked at the badge next to his face and looked up.

On the face of it, the sheriff looked the same as he had the night of the fire.  Only when Derek took stock could he see the added wrinkles, the permanent downward slope of his mouth, the dark smudges under his eyelids.

He dropped his gaze.  “Sorry, sir,” he muttered to the badge.

He could see the sheriff scrutinizing him from under his lashes.  “S’all right, kid,” he said finally, sounding tired.  He rubbed a hand over his forehead.  The set of his shoulders wasn’t strong like Derek remembered but instead hunched, like he was carrying an insurmountable weight on them.  He looked worn, frayed around the edges.  Maybe even a little broken.  He squinted watery eyes at Derek.  “Hale, right?”

Derek nodded, keeping his gaze on the sheriff’s boots.

He let out a large sigh.  “You must be here for your sister,” he said wearily, sounding disillusioned with the universe as a whole.  There was a hardness to him, an edge that hadn’t been there before.

Derek nodded again even though it hadn’t quite been a question.

“I was sorry to hear about all that with your uncle.”  He sounded it, too.  He clapped Derek on the shoulder after a moment, as though he’d questioned the gesture before making it.  “I’m glad Laura’s all right.”

“Thank you, sir,” Derek said, struggling to find the appropriate response.  Even though he’d been dealing with conversations like this for a handful of months, he’d never gotten good at them.

The sheriff didn’t linger—which Derek appreciated—moving on down the hall with purpose.  Only once Derek was in the cafeteria, picking up three green Jell-O cups for Laura, did he think to wonder what he’d been doing on the long-term care ward two counties over from Beacon Hills.

* * *

“Here, these were all they had.”

He dropped them all on the tray next to Laura’s bed, letting them  _thunk_  down carelessly.

She stared down at them with dark eyes, clearly resisting throwing at least one of them at his head.  “You should’ve gone as soon as the nurse told you they had them.”

Derek shrugged, not bothering to argue with her.  He wasn’t going to tell her why he hadn’t.  Wasn’t going to say that he hadn’t wanted to go at all, that he was afraid someone would come along and finish the job on her.  That he’d be left alone once and for all.  Laura wouldn’t know how to respond to it, torn between tough love and comfort, and he wasn’t going to put her in that position.

Her eyes tracked the soap opera on the boxy television in the corner that she pointedly  _did not_  watch while she made due with her meager three Jell-Os. 

Derek slouched down in his regular seat, head close enough and wall thin enough that he could hear the strained voice in the next room saying, “You can’t just go up to the roof on some whim.  No one had any idea where you were.”

Derek recognized it as the sheriff’s.  It was thinner, reedier than it had been when he’d been talking to Derek out in the hall.

“I wanted to see the clouds.  Nurse Gwen said they were loafing today like—like—” Whomever it was cut themselves off with a frustrated sound.  Derek closed his eyes.  The voice was warm, but dark, like it was used to having things elude it.

Derek could relate to that.

“Don’t work yourself up.  It’ll come to you,” the sheriff said tiredly, like he was pacing himself as well.  “Stiles, anything could have happened.  You have to stop and  _think_.”  The words sounded pleading, desperate almost. 

There was a lull in the next room.  It had a tenseness to it, like both men were holding themselves back from saying something they might regret.  Finally the younger one—Stiles, as he’d been called—said slowly, “Nothing did happen.  Not today.”

The sheriff sighed. “Not today,” he agreed but it didn’t sound pleased.

Derek’s head lolled against his chest and he fell into a restive sleep before he could hear the rejoinder.

* * *

Derek woke with a roar, eyes blazing and claws clenched around the arms of his chair.  Taking stock of the room, he saw the dark, tangled fan of Laura’s hair on the white of her pillow.  She was fast asleep, though twitching restlessly.

He unfolded his fingers, finding them stiff and unyielding from where they were gripped around wood that was threatening to splinter.  He carefully pulled away from it.  His heart was battering against his ribcage, vision red.  He could still see hands closing around her throat, hands he knew well, and he kicked himself out of his seat.

He was too ratcheted up for sleep now. 

He stalked out into the hall, chest heaving and adrenaline flooding every inch of him, trying to bring himself back under control. 

“Your eyes are glowing.” 

Derek whirled around, snarling, to find a boy staring at him from the next room.  His door was cracked and he inched behind it slightly.  Derek could just barely see one eye peeking out at him.  The boy gasped as Derek faced him full on and then he was throwing the door open, all bound-up energy, and leaning in an inch from Derek’s face, peering up at him with wide, doe eyes.

Derek barely had a moment to panic before the boy was saying, “They’re so blue.  Electric,” he added with a shiver.  He didn’t sound anything other than enraptured.

He touched his thumb to the ridge of Derek’s eyebrow—where it would have been at least—without the slightest bit of hesitation.  It was so unexpected that Derek flinched backward.  The kid followed him, undeterred.  His face was bathed in pale moonlight and moles dotted his smooth skin while his mouth hung slightly open.

“You’re an animal,” he said, awed.  He furrowed his brow, stared down at his hands and scowled.  “Animal,” he reiterated, looking angrier.  “Animal, animal,  _animal_.” 

The boy’s face was growing red, furious, and Derek blurted out, “Wolf.”

He grinned, expression brilliant.  He nodded eagerly, eyes glittering.  Derek had never seen anything like them, almost orange in the low light, the edges close to the gold of a newly made Beta.  “Yes.  You’re a  _wolf_ ,” he reiterated, emphasizing the word purposefully.

Derek swallowed, feeling dumbly proud of himself that he had figured out what the boy had wanted to say before he could work himself into a meltdown.  Even if he had given away their secret.  Again.

He felt sure Laura would never forgive him this time.  Not that he was entirely sure she had for the last.

Hands pressed into his own, palm against palm—making Derek’s skin tingle, and the boy used that as leverage so he could stand on his tiptoes and blink right into Derek’s eyes.

Derek let him.  He had no idea what else to do.  He didn’t understand why this boy seemed so comfortable in the presence of a werewolf.

“They’re beautiful,” he breathed.  “Bioluminescent almost.”  He snorted, his slightly upturned nose scrunching.  Derek’s eyes crossed watching it.  “That word I know but  _wolf_ escapes me.”  He shook his head, woefully amused, and Derek’s fingers curled around his automatically as it seemed like he might pull away.  Derek’s were still clawed but the boy didn’t so much as glance at them.  His eyes were only for Derek’s. 

“They’re ugly,” Derek found himself telling him.  He hadn’t let anyone but Laura see them in years, shame and guilt always curling in his gut every time he showed them.

The boy snorted again.  “You’re delusional,” he said, grinning, “and trust me, I  _know_  delusional.”  His limbs were long and coltish and he didn’t seem to have expert control over them.  His eyes were big, amber, framed with preternatural lashes and he had spots.

He was a fawn and Derek, a wolf.  Maybe that explained why Derek was struck with the urge to devour him.

“I’m Stiles.”  The sheriff’s boy.  Derek had thought he recognized the life in his voice.  His smile curved more and became slightly bitter.  “Today, I’m Stiles,” he corrected with a wry twist to his lips.

Derek’s voice stuck embarrassingly and he tried again.  “Derek.  Every day.”

Stiles’ smile stayed bitter.  “Lucky you.”

* * *

The sheriff knocked on Laura’s door the next afternoon and lifted his chin towards Derek, expression grave.  Laura perked an eyebrow at Derek curiously—and slightly accusingly—but she didn’t stop him from following the sheriff out.

Derek almost half-wished she would’ve.

He stopped in the hallway right outside the door.  “Stiles says he ran into you last night?” 

Derek swallowed, feeling anxiety race through his veins.  He hadn’t told Stiles to keep quiet about his… condition.  Most people tended to assume they wouldn’t be believed and came to that conclusion on their own. Somehow Derek had known though: Stiles wasn’t like most people.

“I’d like to apologize if he did anything… inappropriate.”

Derek’s jaw nearly dropped.  “No, he— _no_ ,” he said forcefully.  Stiles had been… he hadn’t been afraid.  He’d looked at Derek with awe instead of disgust.  He’d touched him, leaned  _into_  him rather than away.  He’d reacted unlike anyone Derek had ever met.  He was exciting and vibrant and his scent reminded Derek of being deep inside a forest he knew so well he could walk it blindly.

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at the vehemence in his tone.  “Well, if he  _does_  do anything outside the norm, it’s a part of his,” the sheriff coughed, “condition.”  It was odd hearing the word thrown back at him in reference to Stiles.  Stiles didn’t have a condition.  Stiles was… Derek would have smelled it, he felt sure of it.  “He can’t exactly think things through.  He gets an idea in his head and he goes after it regardless of the consequences.”

“There was nothing wrong with him last night,” Derek reiterated adamantly.

The sheriff snorted.  His nose wrinkled up like Stiles’.  “Except for the fact that he woke up this morning certain that the boy next door’s eyes burned blue fire?”

Derek winced.

“The hallucinations had been getting fewer and farther between but—” The sheriff rubbed his forehead, his eyes growing shiny before he shook himself out of it.  “I’m glad he wasn’t too bad.”  He offered Derek a weak twitch of his lips and turned back to Stiles’ room.

Derek cleared his throat.  “His condition, what is it exactly?”

The sheriff’s expression grew pinched and he tried to smile again but it fell through.  “Frontotemporal dementia.  His mother had it, it’s—It’s degenerative.  I’ll try to keep him from disturbing you.”

“He didn’t,” Derek repeated, feeling something churn unpleasantly in his guts as the diagnosis settled.

The sheriff’s lips twitched again and he closed the door to Stiles’ room behind him.

* * *

Over the next few days, Derek helped Laura with her physical therapy—let her bitch and snap at him when he pushed her too hard and do the same when he didn’t. He ran the path out on the grounds until his lungs hurt and the soles of his feet were pulsing with his heartbeat.  His own harsh breathing kept him company while he watched the leaves grow golden tips, shooting up every time the guilt made him want to vibrate out of his skin. And, mostly, he tried not to listen to Stiles.

Sometimes his father was there with him, sad and careful but ready to talk whenever Stiles seemed to want to.  Some days it was the doctor—the same Laura had—who would ask him a seemingly endless series of questions, let out an even breath and say he did well. Then bring the sheriff out into the hallway and tell him the exact opposite while the man ground his teeth so hard Derek thought they might shatter.

Over the next week, Derek listened to Stiles pace, listened to him breathe—choppy and smooth, listened to him get so pent up inside his own skin that he’d scream.

Laura never heard him, never seemed to be able to think past her own pain. Derek sat next to her, touched her arm and felt like a stranger while he drew her aches into himself, letting them slosh around messily inside his gut.

Sometimes he wished he could go next door, do the same for the smart-mouthed boy with the doe eyes who couldn’t seem to catch a break.

* * *

“What are you reading about?” Laura asked.  Her expression was bored, sharpening on Derek when he didn’t immediately answer.

Derek flipped the page, barely paying her any mind.  “Nothing.”  He looked up at her.  “Do you need something?  Want to try walking again?”  The doctors thought she might be ready for it.  Her hip looked so much better than the last time Derek remembered seeing it, when her flesh had been stringy over it and the bone porcelain white.

Laura shook her head, expression softening.  Dark hair framed her oval face and her thin lips pursed.  “I’m still exhausted just from getting to the bathroom earlier.  Tell me what you’re reading.”

Derek huffed, pulling the book into the cradle of his chest.  “It’s a medical journal.”

Laura’s knowing eyes danced over his face.  “You’re reading about the boy next door’s disease.”

“Stiles,” Derek deflected. 

Laura huffed, pushing herself up into a sitting position.  Only a week ago, Derek would have had to help her.  A small smile curved his lips when she did it on her own.  “How bad is it?”  She played at being detached but Derek knew she liked Stiles too, now that she’d finally moved past being oblivious to his entire presence.

Derek frowned; despair washing through him all over again.  “Fatal,” he spat out the word. 

Laura gasped, clearly not having expected it any more than Derek had.  “How long does he have?” she asked quietly. 

Derek shrugged helplessly.  “Some people live for twenty years.  Some for two.  He’s—the symptoms are fairly advanced.”  Laura had only met Stiles twice, when he came to hover close to Derek or peer into her face and tell her how pretty she was.  Yesterday he’d wandered in and held Derek’s hand for an hour before anyone had come to corral him.  He’d kept saying how strange it was to see it without claws while Laura stared at them wide-eyed from the bed.  Derek had felt hot under the collar, embarrassed, but he hadn’t once asked Stiles to leave.  “The disinhibition and impulsivity, that thing where he uses the broad term rather than something more specific, the social awkwardness, inability to read, lack of coordination, that’s all—It’s already progressed pretty far.”

“Derek,” Laura said softly, “I’m so sorry.”

Derek hunched in on himself, slammed the book shut.  “Don’t be.  I barely know him.”

Laura gazed at him for a long moment, eyes so like his own.  “Don’t hide this from me.  It’s okay to care about him, to care about someone again.”

Derek bit his lip so hard it bled.

* * *

There was a woman in Stiles’ room with him.  Someone with a soft, nurturing voice, someone who asked about Derek’s blue eyes, who wanted to know when Stiles had started seeing them.

Stiles didn’t answer right away.  Finally he said, somewhat coldly, “You don’t have to believe me. I know what I saw.” He sounded shaky, mean, but only to cover a gaping vulnerability—like he didn’t really know, like maybe he couldn’t trust his own eyes.

“Stiles, you remember, we talked about this?”  The woman sighed and Derek heard springs creak, as though she was settling on the bed next to him.  There was real care in her voice.  “It’s an hallucination, that’s all.  I can’t imagine how real it must have seemed, but it wasn’t.  Some part of you knows that.”

Stiles let out a choked sound.  “Maybe it’s better to believe it was.  To think that maybe my head could do something right.”

There was a weak swallow and then a weaker, “Oh Stiles.”

Derek was across the room before he could think better of it and even Laura’s sharp, “Where do you think you’re going?” wasn’t enough to slow him down. He opened the door and found the sheriff slumped down in the hallway, eyes red and legs bent at the knees in front of him.

He swallowed hard, staring up at Derek, mouth open when a woman with dark curls came out of Stiles’ room.  She glanced halfheartedly at Derek before focusing on the sheriff. “John, I—” she started.

He shook his head, eyes streaming more freely.  “Don’t say it, Melissa—Fuck, just—”

Derek turned on his heel, closing Laura’s door behind him, and slumped back against it.

* * *

The next morning, he woke to find Stiles standing in front of him, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides while he shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other.  He looked pale but determined, biting into his lower lip until the flesh turned white.

“Stiles—” Derek started, feeling several steps behind in the plot and completely disoriented because of it.

“Do it again.”  Stiles’ chin was jutted out purposefully and he looked almost foreboding, towering over Derek the way he was.

Derek gaped, instinctively looking to Laura only to find she was wide-awake and staring curiously between the both of them.

“I  _know_  I saw it.” His heartbeat skipped. He was already doubting it. Derek could get them out of this, could convince Stiles he’d never seen what he did.  Stiles stood there, looking lost, helpless, ready to crumble.

Derek couldn’t let him.  He threw a pleading look over at Laura and was rewarded with the barest of nods.

His eyes flashed blue and Stiles practically pooled into a puddle of relief at his feet, chanting, “ _I knew it, I knew it, I knew it_ ,” under his breath.

* * *

Laura was gone.

Derek sat up, blood draining from his face as he stared at what was literally his worst nightmare—empty, cold sheets with no trace of Laura left behind. He fancied he could smell a copper tang in the air and he’d nearly broke into a mournful howl when he heard a loud, bright voice rounding the corner onto the hallway.

“If you needed the walker, you should have said.  No shame in having the hips of the Cryptkeeper at the age of thirty.”  Stiles’ voice sounded chipper.  Laura growled lowly, sounding as close to murderous as she ever got, and Stiles only barked out a happy laugh in response.  His tone dipped into something more serious.  “I won’t feel bad for you, not when I know you can do better.”

When they finally reached the door of the room, Stiles cheerfully reported that Laura had made a circuit of the whole floor without having to sit down once.

It was the first time she’d managed it.

Laura struggled back towards the bed, brushing off Derek when he rushed forward to help.  She sat back against her pillows, the biggest grin Derek had ever seen on her face.

Stiles sat down next to her hip, said, “You’re a success story.  Be sure to thank your neighborhood do-gooder.” He puffed out his chest proudly. “I deserve something spectacular for all that bitching I had to put up with, something like food. Food.   _Food_.” 

Stiles’ expression grew tight and Derek was quick to try to calm him. “Just wait, it’ll come.” But nothing could upset Stiles quite like being unable to navigate his own mind.

Stiles snarled, turning his glare on Laura.  “ _This_ —this is why you can’t—why I won’t  _let you_.” He cut himself off while Laura watched him, wary, waiting.  “Everything on you  _works_ ,” he bit out. “It’s a temporary pain. You have no idea what it’s like when your body.  Fuck, body. Body.”  He ground his teeth together so hard that Derek heard something snap.  “ _Brain_ ,” he forced out. “When your brain betrays you. Buck the fuck up and  _walk_ , you goddamn  _werewolf_.”

Neither one of them had the chance to say anything else before Stiles was kicking Laura’s trashcan halfway across the room and storming out.

* * *

It was rare to find Laura in bed after that.  She was always moving around the room, settling in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, getting her own green Jell-O from the cafeteria, making faster circuits of the floor, even braving the stairs after another week.  She didn’t let the fear of falling slow her down anymore.  Now she let it  _drive_  her.

Stiles sat down next to her in the cafeteria after a few days as though he’d never had any sort of outburst and asked if she was going to eat her Jell-O.

It was green.  Laura gave it to him anyway. 

Derek hid his grin in his egg salad and let his calf brush up against Stiles’ under the table.

* * *

Derek watched Stiles stare out Laura’s window at the grounds. The trees were beginning to explode with red and orange and yellow and his own autumnal eyes seemed to reflect the tone of the season perfectly.  The sunlight was pale on his shoulders and his jaw was clenched almost thoughtfully.

“Stiles?” Derek asked carefully.  It was rare for him not to be talking.  He usually only gave it up as a bad job after he’d failed to grasp a word multiple times but today he’d been silent since he’d first wandered into Laura’s room.

Neither Laura or Derek had said so, but it had set them both on edge.

After a calm moment, he smiled tightly at the two of them, landing on Laura. “You get better and I get worse,” he said quietly.  “I know you don’t know him that well but your family’s small now and mine’s getting smaller all the time it feels like, so I thought, maybe—my dad.  He doesn’t have anyone else.”  He stared down at his fingers, bouncing them one at a time almost as if to prove he still could.  “He needs someone else.”

“We won’t let anything happen to him,” Laura said firmly, not even making Stiles stumble through the request.  Derek could hear the promise of an Alpha behind her words and he knew it would be one Laura would keep.

Or die trying.

* * *

The sheriff spent more time with them after that.  Dragged into the room by a recalcitrant Stiles and set up on the foot of Laura’s bed.  He drank old coffee from a Styrofoam cup and tried not to look weather-beaten and drawn.

For a long time it was awkward, stilted.  Derek wasn’t sure how to talk to the father of a dying boy he was all but obsessed with and Laura feared if he spent much time with them that he’d notice how unnatural her refractory period was.  He was kind of trained to notice inconsistencies after all.

Stiles wouldn’t be moved no matter what tack they took with him.

Then, one afternoon, Laura talked the sheriff into a game of Gin Rummy. Then again two days later, and as the games grew more and more competitive, the sheriff grew more and more animated in return.  Sometimes Derek and Stiles would join in too but mostly Stiles sat in the corner chairs with Derek and made him tell tall tales of werewolves and kitsunes and kanimas while he squirmed with unbridled glee and demanded more.

There was real happiness to be found there now.  Less than a month ago, Derek never could have imagined it.

* * *

Derek walked back into Laura’s room, cup of coffee in hand—the caffeine did nothing for him but the scent and heat worked wonders and he’d come to associate the smell with the sheriff, with family.  Stiles was sitting on the bed next to Laura, flailing out something with his hands.  He was wearing the pale blue hospital scrubs, the bottoms not tied and the top a low scoop neck that highlighted the jut of his collarbones.

Laura was smiling indulgently at him.

They both turned when he shuffled in, Laura still smiling and Stiles  _beaming_.  He leapt up, dragging Derek over to Laura’s window and pointing down at the grounds.  His skin was warm against Derek’s and it made Derek break out in goosebumps.  “I’m not allowed outside,” he said softly, “but I think I should make a break for it today.”  He winked before closing his eyes, like he was imagining the feel of the sun on his face.

His lashes fanned out over pale skin and he looked more relaxed than Derek had ever seen him.

His eyes opened, gazing up at Derek, crumbling all the resolve inside him.  “Laura won’t get her butt out of bed.”  He stuck his tongue out at her before turning back to Derek.  “But I want to swim in the lake down there, walk in the sun, not live every second in a filtered environment.”  His lips kicked out into a grin that he clearly knew Derek wouldn’t be able to resist.  His mouth was pink and his lower lip was wet.  “I want to go but I need the wolfy powers at my back.”

“He doesn’t even remember if he knows how to swim,” Laura put in stoutly, still sounding amused.  Her face was rosy with it and it made something inside Derek stitch back together.  He hadn’t seen her look that happy in a long time.

“I’m pretty sure I do,” Stiles said stubbornly, glaring at her and stamping his foot slightly.  It didn’t look purposeful and Derek felt his face soften looking at him.   Stiles used those big doe eyes on him, gaze beseeching.  “I know wolves like you need fresh air and so do pale teenagers with only months to their name.”

The smile slipped from Derek’s face.  He felt wooden.  “I’ll take you,” he said stiffly.

Stiles already had his mouth open to make the next argument when he registered Derek’s words.  He brightened instantly, like a strong burst of sunlight, and barked out something about shoes and then he was gone.

Derek’s guts were roiling.  He felt as if he’d been poisoned with a particularly violent strain of wolfsbane.  His insides shriveling and blackening and  _warping_  with it.  He stumbled back into the doorframe, his stomach heaving like he might void his insides on the pristine hospital floor.

“Derek, he’s not thinking clearly but  _you_  are.  You know better than this.”  He could  _feel_  Laura’s eyes flashing red, command in them, but he could barely hear her.

He blinked up at her with glassy eyes and croaked out, “ _Months_?”  He stared at her helplessly.  She looked shrunken suddenly, not like his big sister who could solve any problem, who had answers to questions he hadn’t even asked yet, who was  _Laura_  and who  _always_  knew what to do.  “Did you know?”

She shook her head, mouth pinched.  “I thought you must have,” she said quietly and Derek could see the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes that she’d been trying to hide.  It had punched her in the gut just as hard.  She was merely better at handling it.  “We made a promise to him,” she reminded him softly.

Derek didn’t have a chance to respond before Stiles was bounding back into the room, illicit Converse on his feet and a grin hitching his mouth to the side.  He looked happy enough that he might burst apart with it while Derek felt so miserable he wanted to shift and run until he couldn’t remember his way back.

* * *

Stiles’ bottoms were rolled halfway up his calves and he was holding his shoes by the heels in his hand while he walked around the edge of the lake.  His face was tilted back, soaking up the sunlight, which only highlighted how moon-pale he truly was.

Derek noticed that a few of the nurses caught sight of them, winding an aimless path along the shoreline, but none of them did anything more than smile sadly and let them be.

Derek was holding on to Stiles’ other hand as if to guide him, though truthfully he couldn’t bring himself to let go of this boy who’d seen his wolf and thought it was wondrous and magical.  He could only remember Kate, whose lip had raised in a sneer and whose gaze had held nothing but hatred and disgust.

He couldn’t imagine Stiles ever looking at anyone like that.  He was so painfully alive, so ridiculously happy because of it, and yet he was dying at the same time.

“You look sad,” came a soft voice from his right. 

Derek cleared his throat but he still sounded gravelly.  “I didn’t know it would be so soon.”  It was all he could bring himself to say.  He felt hollowed out inside, replaced with nothing but the word ‘ _months_.’

Stiles shrugged carelessly.  “Every life ends,” he said simply.  “We just have to hope we’ve done something worthwhile with it while we’ve got it.”  He squinted against the sunlight, turning to look at Derek, and smiled so wide that all Derek could see was the white of his teeth.  “You and Laura?  You’re my something worthwhile, I think.”  He smirked.  “And I didn’t even need the glowing eyes to know it.”

Derek felt his heart lodge itself in his throat and he gripped Stiles’ hand like he thought it might be ripped away at any moment.  He couldn’t do this again, couldn’t feel this only to lose it.  And this was a thousand times worse because he knew, this time, it was real.

And not just for him.

* * *

He stayed with Stiles in his room that night.

Stiles slept fitfully, legs restless and brow furrowed, until Derek pressed his chest to Stiles’ back, curled his chin over his shoulder and held him around his middle like he never meant to let go.  Stiles settled all at once, bucked back into Derek and went limp like all he’d been waiting for was someone else to hold him, to make him feel safe.

Derek wanted to be the only one who did that for Stiles for the rest of his life.

When Derek woke to the pale light of dawn, the sheriff was sitting in the room with them.  His cheeks were wet and he offered Derek a shaky nod when he noticed he was being watched.

Derek nodded back and burrowed his face into Stiles’ neck, breathing in the woodsy scent of him and planting his palm over the reassuring hop-skip of his heart.

He slipped away into sleep again seconds later.

* * *

“Derek!” Stiles said brightly, plowing into Laura’s room and pushing a floppy-haired kid through the door in front of him.  He planted the kid—who was offering them both a nervous smile—at the foot of Laura’s bed and waved a hand over him.  “This is my Scott,” he said happily.  

Scott waved awkwardly, though he was clearly used to Stiles’ odd behavior.  Stiles forcibly turned Scott towards Laura rather than Derek.  “And this one is Laura.  Didn’t I tell you she was pretty?” he asked, lowering his voice but not so much that it wasn’t audible to everyone in the room—wolf-hearing or no.  Derek shrunk down in his seat with a glower.

Laura rolled her eyes at him.

Scott nodded timidly; Laura’s cheeks the slightest bit red.  She’d never learned to take a compliment.  “Erm, hi.  Stiles said he made friends, I didn’t quite believe him.”  His tone implied he had his reasons.  Stiles had probably mentioned the glowing eyes thing again. 

Derek and Laura had both told him to stop.

He plopped down in the chair next to Derek, all flailing limbs.  “He doesn’t believe me about you being wolves.”  His face was drawn, sadness etched into it.  “No one believes me about anything anymore.”

Scott looked stricken.  He knelt down in front of Stiles, wrapping up their hands together, and Derek tried not to give in to the growl rumbling through his insides at someone else touching Stiles so intimately.  “I believe you,” he said fiercely.  “I believe everything you say to me.”

Stiles was cheered instantly, smile wide enough it stretched his cheeks.  “You see why he’s my Scott?” he said brightly while Derek grunted and Laura smiled at them.  Stiles’ gaze cut over to Laura’s unsubtly.  “Scott has really bad asthma.  Almost-died-once-bad.  I worry about him, you know?” he pushed.

Laura’s gaze sharpened and it was clear to both she and Derek in that instant what Stiles was doing.

He was bringing them  _Pack_ , his own.

Scott tentatively grinned at the both of them, clearly feeling the shift in the room even if he didn’t understand it.  He sat down on the arm of Stiles’ chair and tried to look inconspicuous.  Derek’s spine itched.  The foot of Laura’s bed was free; Scott certainly didn’t  _have_  to sit so close to Stiles.

Stiles nodded to Laura.  “Laura was attacked by her uncle.  He’s also a wolf and he was trying to take the red eyes from her but Laura killed him before he could.  Derek’s eyes are color.  Argh,  _color_.”  Stiles turned and looked pitifully at Derek.

Derek rolled his eyes, pretending—poorly—that he wasn’t overjoyed at being the center of Stiles’ attention again, and said, “Blue.”

Stiles nodded, turning back to Scott.  “But like bright, bright,  _bright_.”

Scott’s mouth twitched up into a sad smile and he slumped back against the wall.  Derek and Laura shared a look.  It was the same expression Stiles’ dad had when Stiles told him about the werewolves next door.  It was clear both Scott and the sheriff thought this was a sign of him deteriorating further.

Laura looked over at him and Derek could read the guilt clearly in her face.  Because if anyone was going to recognize it, it was Derek.

* * *

Stiles was asleep in Laura’s bed when the sheriff came in the next day. Derek and Laura were watching the soap opera that  _neither_  of them watched.  The sheriff smirked at them, glanced up, and said offhandedly, “Janice marries Ricardo.” 

Laura gaped.  “But he killed her  _brother_ , she wouldn’t—” she cut herself off with a snap.  “You’re a horrid, hateful man, you know that?”

The sheriff shrugged, hiding a grin behind his coffee cup. “It’s not like you watch it or anything.”

Laura snarled, angrily cutting off the episode, while Derek inhaled a deep lungful of gun polish and old coffee, letting it sink in and settle him.

The sheriff turned to look at Stiles, his face mashed into Laura’s cot and his mouth open, ass in the air.  His expression grew somewhat wistful.  “He seem all right to you?”  The sheriff cleared his throat, as though realizing the obvious answer to that and not wanting to hear it.  He sat down, tugged gently on Stiles’ ankle as though needing the physical connection to him.  “Do you think he’s gotten any worse, I mean?” 

Laura spoke up.  “No better, but no worse.”

Only Derek could hear the lie in her heartbeat.

* * *

“I think we should tell them.” 

He expected Laura to argue, to caution him, anything other than lower her head and say quietly, “I do, too.”

All the fight went out of Derek and he slumped down next to her, feeling her good arm come up to cradle his head while he breathed against her shoulder.  He hadn’t been this close to Laura since it had happened.  He’d been so sure she hated him, for Kate, for Peter, for their whole family but from Alpha to Beta all he felt was acceptance.

“Derek,” she said, breath hot against his hair, “I want to offer it.”

Derek stiffened.  He’d been hoping it with his entire being but he’d known he had no right to ask it of her, to make requests or demands.  He blinked up at her with wide, wet eyes.  “You do?”

She nodded carefully.  “We sit him down and we explain it to the sheriff and then we make the offer.”  She looked so sure of herself, so perfectly in command that Derek couldn’t help but compare her to their mother.

He didn’t find her wanting in the least. 

Derek swallowed, only finding one sticking point.  “I’m not doing it without telling Stiles.  I need him to understand.”

Laura watched him for a long moment.  “Tell him tonight,” she said.  “Tomorrow, we’ll talk to the sheriff.  Together.”

Derek gazed at his sister, relief making him light-headed that she’d let him do this alone, let him have this moment with Stiles.  She trusted him and it made him want to trust himself.  “Thank you,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple as he pulled away.  Both of them pretended not to notice the way her eyes glittered wetly in the dark.

* * *

“Stiles?”

Stiles wasn’t asleep as Derek had expected.  Instead his legs were dangling over the edge of his bed and he was staring out his window, watching the silhouettes of the trees wave in the breeze.  He swiveled around at the sound of Derek’s voice, face lighting up when he caught sight of him.  He bounced up, bounding into Derek’s space, and touched his face.  “You’re here,” he breathed happily, gripping him harder.

Some days it was as if he didn’t believe any of what they’d experienced together was real and he was surprised all over again by Derek’s existence.

Derek let his eyes bleed blue because Stiles made him feel special when he did it, made him feel coveted.  “I want to ask you something.”

Stiles closed his eyes, leaned closer, let his buzzed hair brush the underside of Derek’s jaw.  “Ask me anything.”

“I want to give you glowing eyes too, make you into a wolf, but only if you want that too.”

Stiles blinked up at him, innocent eyes large and round.  “What color would they be?” he asked softly, stroking his hand carefully down the side of Derek’s face, lingering on his stubble.

Derek brushed a thumb over one of Stiles’ eyebrows, following the curve of it gently.  “Gold,” he said.  “They’d be gold.”

Derek felt Stiles’ mouth curve against his collarbone.  It made him shiver.  The room was still and silent until Stiles whispered against Derek’s skin, “I think I like gold.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://wellhalesbells.tumblr.com/). It'll even buy you breakfast after. ;) ~~it will not buy you breakfast after.~~


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